


No Rest for a Warrior

by Ryumaru



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Fluff, Insomnia, Theraputic Cooking, character backstory, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 10:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11484651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryumaru/pseuds/Ryumaru
Summary: A lone Warrior of Light, one of many, works to keep his mind busy. Sleep does not come easily to R'tahn Tia, and it hasn't for a very long time.





	No Rest for a Warrior

R'tahn rubbed at his arm with his left hand, while his right levered away at a loose bolt. The moon had risen a long time ago, and it was, he thought, probably closer to sunrise than sunset now. Still, he worked away, using a trusty wrench to fix a minor issue with his aetherotransformer. 

With a sigh, he sat back, content that the device linked to his firearm was repaired. He always did maintenance on nights like this. They came frequently to the miqo'te, and his ears flicked back as they picked up a small sound from outside. Someone on their way back to their residence, most likely. He did not pay it much heed. He rarely did at times like these. In the rich area known as The Goblet, there were few problems worth his full attention. 

Ul'dah, he reflected, was a city where there was always something happening, no matter what the time of day was. Gridania was almost eerily quiet at night, with only the rustle of leaves and branches, a fact which had done nothing to soothe his nerves. Even Limsa Lominsa, busy port that it was, had a few hours of the morning where all was silent, save the waves lapping against the docks and the occasional bell from a fog-shrouded boat. But here in the desert, in the bustling trade center that was Ul'dah, there were always people moving around. If he wanted, he could step out into the chill of the night or heat of the day, walk down a promenade, hear people talking and trading and traversing the course of their lives. No isolation. No deafening, looming silence that made his nerves clang and thoughts whirl ever faster, threatening to break his head open like an overripe fruit. 

With almost mechanical precision, he picked up the hand-held carbine he'd been working on. A few screws were loosened, a latch moved, and the weapon opened for cleaning. His hands worked automatically. His eyes nearly unfocused, and he forced them back to painful, sharp clarity. Every detail. Every scratch, nick, scuff, mark. He forced himself to take it in. Forced himself to analyze each one, remember where it had come from, devise solutions to prevent a more serious version of the incident from breaking his weapon. It was the only way to slow his mind down when it got like this – a lighthouse beacon in the storm of thoughts and crashing waves of sensation and non-sensation that washed through him. He let himself be this way, this half-empty mammet state, because the alternative was to be overwhelmed and reduced to a mewling child again. The nightmare still came back sometimes, leaving him to believe that his whole life had been the dream and he was back in the hold of an unknown ship, bound for shores far from home, told only that his mother had arranged for it so that he could live in freedom rather than under an Imperial thumb. A small, vindictive part of him hoped that she had felt as hurt as he had, going to bed unsuspecting and waking to be all alone. Dangerously, silently, nerve-wrackingly, fist-clenchingly, teeth-grindingly-

He stopped. With weary hands, R'tahn eased the muscles around his jaw and slowly started to relax them. His teeth were in miraculously good shape, all things considered, and he did not want to ruin that small good fortune. The partially disassembled firearm lay on the desk, a few tools and parts strewn around it. He lowered his hands and placed them, fingers spread, on the wooden surface, in an attempt to keep them from shaking. 

No sleep tonight, he thought. Not likely. 

He had always considered asking one of his fellows in the Free Company for aid. It would only be a simple walk down the dormitory hall. A simple Sleep spell, a spell known by even journeyman thaumaturges, could do it. In theory. He remembered the last time he had tried forcing sleep upon himself in this state, downing an alchemical concoction powerful enough to knock out a roegadyn. The nightmares had lingered for weeks afterward. 

It infuriated him to know that this wrenching tension had no source. He had spent countless sleepless hours (what else was he to do?) pondering the cause. But no image came. Not the leering grimace of Diabolos, assaulting him from the skies above Dun Scaith. Not the horrible, noisome maw of a morbol stretching wide to swallow him. Not the dozens of primals, each terrifying and deadly in their own right, that he had battled. No, not one foe stood against him. It was only his own mind, his own body, twitching and sparking inside like a ruined device. Fear? No. Fear felt different. Fear was an icy chill that seeped into his bones, one that he could ward off with the heat of his gun barrel and the warm hum of the aetherotransformer on his belt, with the insulating weight of his armor, with a meal in his belly and a friend at his back. This was a shock to his spine, lingering like dark voidsent fire gnawing on his soul. It was the shaking of hands weakened by blood loss, the seizing of muscles under the influence of some toxin, the hideous, mind-erasing miasma of some as-yet-undiscovered horror. Not even the mighty Alexander rending time itself asunder to strike him down had felt like this. 

Unable to stay seated, R'tahn stood and began pacing. This was another familiar phase of his sleepless nights, where he could wander the Free Company estate, or the Ul'dahn streets, or wherever else he chose to go, for hours. He would search for some project, some thing of some kind to draw his attention and quell his mind, but he would never find one. Even the cheerful streets of Kugane, filled with music and the scents of frying food, had done little for him.

Absently, the miqo'te found himself padding towards the estate kitchens. Few would be up at this hour, but those that were would likely be found hunting some snack. Though he knew he would barely be able to answer their queries, he also knew, in a detached kind of way, that it would help him come back to himself later. 

Elise and Vantel, twins in every respect but blood (and some had their doubts about that), were there, amicably chatting over a bottle of wine. The former had been an officer in the Free Company for some time before R'tahn and the latter had joined up, but she had welcomed them with open arms. Now, she gave him a lazy salute, dulled only slightly by the alcohol. Vantel didn't even turn around when offering her own, and he returned the gesture to them both with a vacant expression. Idly, he examined a few items in the larder. Perhaps he could throw something on the stove in an attempt to reawaken himself. 

No hunger motivated him, at least, none that he could feel, but something stirred in his gut at the thought of cooking something. Slowly, like a sleepwalker, he took a few vegetables from a pantry drawer. Meat, perfectly preserved in a chest lined with ice-aspected crystals, came out next. Garlic, paprika, a few other herbs. Sharpened stakes. A chip of fire crystal, with which to light the stove. His culinarian's knife, drawn from a hidden pocket on his toolbelt. 

Much like with the gun upstairs, he addressed his task with mechanical efficiency. Onion, carrot, and tomato alike were chopped with practiced skill, if little flair. The meat sizzled in a pan, warming up from its chilly storage. With a deft flick of the knife, he slid it out and onto a cutting board, where he cubed it with a precision that would have been the envy of assassins. A few moments of crushing and grinding, and he prepared a bed of seasoning. The stakes were soon held up in the lamplight, to receive both vegetable and meat in equal portion. 

The process was familiar to him. His own tribe, the Seekers of the Sun, had perfected the technique in ages past, grilling the food over an open flame before embarking on a desert hunt. Their sister tribe, the Keepers of the Moon, had welcomed the idea and adopted it for their own. It became a tradition among miqo'te to make the kabobs for dinner around a communal fire. Though this surrogate tribe presently consisted of himself and the two other miqo'te in the room, it was enough. Without looking, he knew that both Elise and Vantel's tails would be twitching in excitement as they smelled the food. It had become familiar to them as well as to him, this practice rooted in his insomniac trance. 

With a few minutes over a flame, the kabobs were done to perfection. Miqo'te preferred their meat rare when possible, and R'tahn had always cooked his just on that side of well done. Delicious, firm, juicy, with still a bit of fresh pinkness in each bite. The intensive task of ensuring even cooking helped to steady him, in ways that finicky work like his engineering could not. The culinary arts were a science, yes, but a science that spread itself across a canvas of scintillating experiences. Engineering and machining were of a different sort – cooler, more controlled, more razor-sharp in intent and procedure. The mind was always full and awake in those moments, but at a kitchen stove, it could slacken its pace. 

Wordlessly, R'tahn set a plate piled high with kabobs between his friends. They offered brief, but sincere, thanks, and he took his own plate with him back to his room. 

Within an hour, the miqo'te dozed on his bed, platter empty save for some few crumbs, the carbine cleaned and ready next to it. His sleep was fitful, yes, but not so fitful as it had been years ago, before he had found home.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically wrote this as a vent fic during a bit of my own insomnia. It helped. Also, conveniently, it works to flesh out my character's backstory. 
> 
> R'tahn Tia is my PC in FF14. If you want to track me down on there and run dungeons or something, I'm on the Zalera server.


End file.
